Latest in Leigh Whannell

UPDATED, 12:12 PM: Universal said today that its Blumhouse remake of The Invisible Man will arrive on February 28, two weeks earlier that planned. It was set to face off against Warner Bros’ Godzilla vs. Kong and now faces United Artists Releasing’s hidden-camera prank pic Bad Trip. The news comes about an hour after…

“I just had an idea about a computer that was controlling a human, puppeteering them but the human was still in there and was involuntarily having to do these things,” shared Upgrade‘s writer and director Leigh Whannell during his stop at the Deadline Studio at SXSW. Ahead of its June 1 theatrical release, the…

“The Bleeding Edge: A New Generation of Horror” panel at SXSW started off with a loaded question from Stage13’s Two Sentence Horror Stories filmmaker Vera Miao: “How does your identity shape how you are as a horror filmmaker?” Genre mega-producer Jason Blum immediately answered in a joking tone, “That’s a racist…

Universal Pictures has retitled the fourth chapter of its Insidious horror franchise. After two films about a couple whose son becomes a vessel for ghosts and a 2015 prequel, Insidious: The Last Key returns Lin Shaye as Dr. Elise Rainier, the brilliant parapsychologist who faces her most fearsome and personal haunting…

Focus Features, eOne, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions and Blumhouse Productions has set original Saw and Insidious writer Leigh Whannell to direct Insidious: Chapter 3. The fright franchise originated at FilmDistrict and was absorbed by Focus when Peter Schlessel took the reins. Whannell, who wrote and acted in…

Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 screenwriter Leigh Whannell will return to pen a third installment of the hit horror franchise for Blumhouse Productions, Entertainment One, FilmDistrict, and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions. Conspicuously absent from today’s threequel announcement is Whannell’s longtime…

A sequel to the horror hit Insidious is in the works, with Leigh Whannell returning to write the script and James Wan in talks to once again direct.  Jason Blum will produce through Blumhouse Productions and Brian Kavanaugh Jones, Oren Peli and Steven Schneider will be exec producers. Alliance Films is back as…

EXCLUSIVE: Evolution Entertainment partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules are splitting after 12 years. Burg has purchased the 50% of the management/production company owned by Koules. Burg has reconstituted the company and named former CAA agent-turned-producer Michael Menchel its new president. This brings to an end a…

FilmDistrict finalized a distribution deal for Insidious, the horror film by original Saw writer/director James Wan and Leigh Whannell, and produced by Paranormal Activity architects Oren Peli, Jason Blum and Steven Schneider.  The deal was long-rumored. FilmDistrict was started by Bob Berney and Peter Schlessel…

EXCLUSIVE FROM TORONTO: The Toronto deal logjam seems to be breaking. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group is closing a deal for North American distribution rights to Insidious, the James Wan-directed thriller that premiered in the Midnight Madness program  Tuesday. Leigh Whannell wrote the script. I’m told it…